On September 11, punk prose legend Jim Carroll slumped onto the floor from where he was working on his final piece, a novel titled “The Petting Zoo”. His declining health had been markedly noticeable and finally after years of drastic deterioration, he suffered a fatal heart attack at age 60. It was there in his childhood apartment of Inglewood, Manhattan, where his most commercially recognized hit “The Basketball Diaries” was penned and set. It was also where he had to retreat when he could no longer afford any other apartment due to the meager royalties he was still receiving. Ironically, while the nosiness of his neighbors in Inglewood was arguably the most comedic theme in The Basketball Diaries, it was a neighbor whom had been peeking in Jim Carroll’s window who saw him slowly slump onto the floor and called the police. The desk on which he died was the nucleus of the apartment and where he spent his time laboring over his toughest task yet; leaving the comfort zone of his shorter style to complete a four part novel.
“The Petting Zoo”, would be Jim Carroll’s first full length piece. A writer praised for his Rimbaud like imagery as well as the lucid feelings he elicited, Jim Carroll only used song lyrics, poetry, diary entries and short prose to communicate his ideas. Struggling with the transition, the novel had already taken ten years. The semi-autobiographical work is about an artist who rises like a phoenix to create one last work of art before he faces his own death. It also includes the artist’s feelings about recognition and fame, something Carroll himself struggled with when he finally achieved success.
If there’s one thing Jim Carroll represented it was hitting rock bottom but continuously finding art as well as beauty in the process and sharing it with the world. A consistent Heroin user and a downtown hero in his home city, NY, not only was Carroll one of the best poets of our time but a successful musician who created catchy, punk hits such as “The People Who Died”. This song was even featured in the Steven Spielberg box office smash; “E.T.”. The album it came from, “Catholic Boy” was even praised as the last real punk record, something he would have never believed when he reluctantly let his then girlfriend Patti Smith convince him to start a band.
Since the 1970’s his soft but gritty style has shown the literary world that it’s possible to use the dream-like and intense style William S. Burroughs favored in a softer and much more romantic way. While enough of the novel was completed to be published posthumously, his incomparable work will be greatly missed. His own life story became immortalized as a representation of wayward youth with the aforementioned “The Basketball Diaries”, a piece originating out of a diary kept in between the ages of 15-17. His poetry collections that followed grabbed the attention of the same audience, as well as the much harder to please literary elite. Any reader however, would agree that Carroll’s voice was refreshing in that it transformed such edgy and at times controversial topics as addiction, poverty and sex with his soothing, sensitive and humanistic style.
Growing up in Manhattan, and staying in NYC for much of his life he was considered an icon in the Chelsea art scene much like Warhol had been. With his gaunt cheekbones, 6’3 stature and flowing red hair, he had become the voice of a generation of lost and spiritually confused youth. Jim Carroll’s mark on literature is an undeniable one and we can be assured he will continue to be revered for his original work for generations to come. However we mourn the loss of an artist who refused to let anything keep him from creating and the voice of a population as spiritually lost and fragile as ours.
